


nonfluent

by tinysmallest



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Dadster, Gen, no au universe here folks this is just straight undertale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 18:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16959375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysmallest/pseuds/tinysmallest
Summary: Good people don't always make good parents, even when they love their children. W. D. Gaster is no exception, though he does try. Oh, does he try.





	nonfluent

One more day.

He has to give it one more day.

Of endless numbers, of problems with solutions seemingly at his grasp, only to slip away at the last moment.

One more day of the endless hum of machines, of the blue paper of blueprints, and their white pencils, and terrible coffee.

He’s so tired, but he must give it one more day, at least, bare minimum, for he owes that much, especially to his own.

“daddy look i-”

“Not now, Sans.”

“but i can help, i can-” There’s a crash and he whirls around in his chair. The boy is on the floor, in a lab coat far too big for him (how did he even get it off the hook...?) surrounded by stacks of paper. Thank goodness he didn’t fall far or knock over anything important.

“Stop while you’re ahead. I brought you plenty of toys; please utilize them instead of destroying my workspace.”

Science is far too serious to allow for little bones running around willy-nilly trying to "help." A glance over his shoulder shows the child glaring at his “invention” of popsicle sticks and glue. Despite the fact that he is right, that such a devise is utterly useless to him, that he cannot allow Sans to simply run around the lab doing whatever he pleases...

There is a pang. He cannot keep doing this; the boy will be hurt. Surely there is something else he can do?

All problems (except the barrier) have a solution. Think. What is it that he can do here?

Wait. The lab coat. The invention. Sans wants to imitate him. Maybe there is something less dangerous he can imitate.

His eyes light on the tiny toy violin, a knickknack really, that a colleague had given him for his desk. A congratulations for a job well done at a piano recital long, long ago...

... Hm.

* * *

Music isn't going to save the world. Music isn’t going to get them past the barrier, if such a thing is possible. Music isn’t going to win the ensuing war. He should not be spending time on music, not when he has work to do, or sleep to catch a bit of.

But it's safe for little bones, so when he comes home that night, he finds their dusty old piano and spends a night fixing it.

Music is safe for little bones, and the act of cleaning it reminded him of the beauty of the instrument, and so every night, he can put aside hands shaking with fatigue and a mind berating him for slacking in order to pick his son up, and set him on his lap, and teach him a simple song.

The first song he teaches him is You Are My Sunshine. Sans listens, enthralled.

"Music is the language of emotion," he tells his small son as his long fingers guide his hands to the keys. Such tiny, delicate hands.

"And as with all emotion, sometimes it is the truth, and sometimes it's a lie. But this song, from me, will never be a lie."

He nods as if he understands, but he is so tiny. He cannot possibly understand.

That is fine. He will in time, and they’ve nothing but that.

* * *

Music cannot save the world, but that is okay too, he supposes. They can sing as tiny hands find their way to the proper keys, and he can smile at the small voice rising in harmony with his own.

Sans does not seem to have any interest in learning anything but that one song. But as long as his son is happy, and they can enjoy replaying this one every evening, everything is fine.

Someday little bones won’t be so little anymore, and he will teach him the proper way around a lab, but for now, this is how they’ll connect, and...

He is finding that chasing that endless answer is easier, that one more day is easier, if there is this to look forward to. Who knew such preciousness existed in this world? It was as if he had known on some level, protecting it, but was seeing it through a fogged window, never engaging with it.

Now that window is clear. And, as the days pass, he realizes that so is his conscious, too.

* * *

He is so bad at emotion when it comes to the language of normal speech.

"Wear your coat."

He never planned on having a child.

"Your vegetables are good for you."

He never planned on surviving to adulthood, truthfully.

"No, growing boys need sleep."

His parents had sucked the life from him, a drop a day, until the idea of spending decades in his own bones felt unbearable.

"Fine, one more story."

Open affection frightens him. He cannot stand touch.

"All right. _One_ more song."

Even the words ‘I love you’ feel too much.

"You're grounded. No, I don't want to hear it; what you did was wrong."

As if the words themselves would peel away too much of his Soul, and reveal the shriveled underside.

"Here, I made you tuna fish today. And I included a ring pop. Please don't propose to the teacher again as a joke; I'll die of shame."

He cannot bear to do that.

"Your report card is wonderful. You did well. I see you excel in science."

But he finds other ways to tell him those three little words.

“That was beautifully played.”

He hopes it is enough.

* * *

It happened again it happened AGAIN.

One child was hard enough; now he has two!?

How could this experiment go so wrong!? As desperately as he runs the calculations, he can’t find an answer. Does the universe enjoy seeing him suffer? It’s the only reason it would give a man like him not one, but two gifts he does not deserve and can’t properly care for!

He struggles to breathe as the walls feel they close in on him. Smuggling the infant home proved to be an ungodly difficult challenge, not because the baby made noise, but because the trembling of his limbs would not cease. At least he managed it by some miracle, but his knees protest moving so much as another step once his front door closes behind him.

He looks so much like him.

That face shape must be so similar to what his own parents saw when-

No, no, he needs- he needs control again he needs to calm down he-

“daddy?”

He raises his head, staring, as Sans pads down the stairs in bunny slippers and a t-shirt with a pun on it. He hands the child to him quickly, struggling for breath.

“Take him to your room. He can share the bed with you.”

Sans doesn’t argue. Frightened eyes stare up at his father, then to the baby, and then he disappears upstairs and leaves Gaster to his shuddering breaths in front of the door.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, he prepares a room for the infant. A cradle, toys, infant safety measures. But the rest, and indeed, as much as possible, he leaves to Sans.

When the infant cries, Sans is there. When the infant is hungry, Sans, clever child, easily figures out how to feed him. Gaster supplies everything that’s needed, including a babysitter on school days, and Sans does the rest. He avoids both children... easy enough, with his workload.

The window isn’t foggy, but now, it is closed. Panic walls him in.

And, selfishly, he does nothing to stop it.

* * *

“why don’t you ever tell me you love me?”

Why are you in an unauthorized area in the middle of the school day asking such a deeply personal question?

But the words, thankfully, don’t leave his mouth. He is too busy staring at his son in a dumb stupor.

“where did i come from?”

“Why does any of that matter?” Oh, no; the wrong response. He knows as it falls from his mouth, but there’s no taking it back.

“because the kids at school say you’re a mad scientist and you made us. but if you made us you’d love us, right?”

Within seconds he tries to figure how schoolchildren could know his sons are the results of illegal experimentation, but for once, logic decides to remind the rest of him that paranoia has the wheel at the moment.

“but you never say you love us and you won’t stay with us.”

“I have a lot of work. And you, young man, have school.”

“it’s recess.”

“That doesn’t mean you can waltz off school grounds!”

“why not? _you_ get to mix up kids in your stupid lab!”

This is not at all where he wants this going. He rubs his temples.

“Sans-”

“you don’t even listen to me play anymore! you missed my science fair! and i spend all my time with papyrus but you don’t take more than five minutes every day to check with us!”

“I said, I’m very busy.” The excuse is hollow. Sans is turning blue with fury and his eye is

glowing?

“that never mattered before! why does it matter now!?”

“I-”

“you didn’t want us, did you!? either of us! you don’t love us, so why did you make us!?”

“I didn’t mean to-”

“you didn’t mean to.” He had not meant it in the context Sans was taking it as. He had meant ‘I did not mean to be so awful, to make you wonder these things.’

But Sans... clever child... is beginning to realize another possibility to explain their existence.

“... we were an accident. that’s all we are to you. accidents.” He eyes his father with a look that chills him to his core, and as Sans turns and begins to stomp away, he finds his feet moving, an arm reaching for his son’s shoulder, no, wait, don’t go; he’s sor-

“get OFF OF ME!” Sans’s low voice rises to a shriek, and he whips around, eye surging with magic—why oh why had he given his son those abilities-

He grabs his Soul, he feels the PING more than he hears it, and the feeling of the metal floor beneath his feet being stolen away is frightening enough until he realizes his son still doesn’t know how to properly use that blue magic of his, does not know how easily the grip slips or the right amount of force to apply or-

And then suddenly, air whistles around him, and his son grows smaller and smaller as he falls, until the child is only a dot, and before the blinding agony overtakes him, he realizes that there will never be one more day; he will never get to give Papyrus those piano lessons or even teach Sans a new song, if he’d ever wanted to learn one, and now the window will close.

Forever.


End file.
